the reality of writing

After all my fine talk, yesterday was a naked confrontation with the problem of work-avoidance.

The aspect of writing that seems like it should be the most creative and the most fun, coming up with original ideas through the free play of imagination, is in fact the most daunting part of the job, at least in my opinion. The work is most approachable when it is at its most mechanical. I almost never put off the most mechanical parts of the job, like typing up my research notes. Indeed, I enjoy that part. I start my "creative" day by reviewing the previous day's writing notes, and highlighting possible "keeper" ideas--again, fairly mechanical and easy, and not something I'm inclined to avoid.

But then we arrive at the day's problems: how to push my story forward? This is where the rubber meets the road, and, by and large, it is the place I am most afraid and disinclined to be.

There's nothing for it: here the writer is on the spot. This is where the writer produces. The insertion-point winks slowly on the screen, ready, waiting. It's supposed to be moving forward, with a string of new words trailing after it.

Yes, this is a corny complaint of writers through the ages. But it's real enough. When the writing matters to you, it becomes very difficult. In this respect it is like thinking through your own life-problems. For we all have those: "What should I do about my alcoholic brother?" "My wife can't forgive me for not getting the vice-presidency; what should I do about that?" "I'm not achieving what I wanted to in life; what should I do?"

Questions that seem too hard we tend to simply avoid, push aside--at least, I do. This is not a wholesome strategy; indeed, it's not any strategy. It's what happens when you simply try to dodge the immediate and impending feeling of failure. In writing, you stare at that insertion-point and nothing comes, perhaps. Or only the same stale ideas that you've typed there before. You get to experience yourself in the act of failing--surely no one's favorite experience.

On the other hand, the failure-point is also the success-point. Whatever magic there is in writing, this is where it happens. New ideas do come, they do blossom in the head--familiar words are strung together, and something new appears. It's just that, on any given occasion, you don't know what you're going to get. Or, rather, you have a good idea that, if it's like most such occasions, it will not be very rewarding. The gold, like real gold, is contained in a mass of native rock that has to be dug. And no matter how much you like gold, some days--many, most--you don't feel like digging.

So yesterday I arranged some notes, did some more research reading--I tried to be productive at those lesser, more doable activities, pushing my project forward in an administrative sense, at least.

This is the reality of writing. There's that winking insertion-point right now: ready, waiting, not judging me but simply doing its job. Yes. Will I do mine?

Rumpelstiltskin the writer

I regarded yesterday as a small victory. My output was slight--but I had an output. When I came down to my office after breakfast, it was looking bad: another day of project-avoidance.

I fiddled and footled with other things, painfully aware of my procrastination. But eventually I coaxed myself into opening up my working files. Unhappily and with distaste I made myself look at my draft in progress, the chapter I've numbered 31(b), growing slowly as a yew-tree. Where does it need to go? Has it started the right way?

The ice cracked when a specific question occurred to me. It was a question about how certain minor characters, holders of a specific job-function, would behave at a particular moment. What was their job? The smallness and specificness of this question was what enabled me to get going. I could go to my Notes document and type my thoughts, such as they were. Would they lay their hands on my character, or not?

This caused me to look at my story-world more closely, to go in and make a decision, or two or three related decisions--small ones. This is the difficulty of writing, I think: decision-making. One of the biggest obstacles to writing is vagueness: an indefiniteness about the subject. If your information is too scanty, you've got nothing to write. If you force yourself to write when you don't have enough information, you become an author of cliches.

In fiction-writing, developing the details of what to write takes effort. Those details have to be discovered, imagined, decided on. Ideally, you need enough information so that you can pick and choose: you can make creative choices.

This is partly a matter of technical research, and partly a matter of active imagination. For the writing to be good, the fictional world must become as definite and specific as the real world--the world of memories, for example. It's like constructing sets for theater or the movies: the set needs to be complete before you can film your scene there. In filmmaking there's a document called the call-sheet that specifies all the people and equipment that need to be on the set for the filming of that day's scenes: actors, hair stylists, special camera gear, automobiles, and so on. Someone has to work out all those details and figure out what's needed, and when.

Writing fiction is the mental equivalent of that. The "set" is in one's head--one's imagination. But it too needs to be furnished through a process. It requires education, research, imagination, and decision-making. I believe that the power of the finished work, the amount of interest and pleasure it can evoke in a reader, depends on how much of this type of effort has gone into it.

All that material furnishes the straw which Rumpelstiltskin the writer spins into gold.

page fright

Today I start with my title. The term came to me abruptly yesterday while I was going about my morning routine, preparatory to coming down to the office to write. When I looked at my mind, I saw that I have a continual, gnawing resistance to facing the task of working on my project, and when I looked more closely, I saw that that resistance was based on fear.

Fear of what, exactly? The term came to me because I recognized the fear as being much the same as stage fright, which I've had a number of times in my life. In the main it's not been debilitating, since there is a ham and applause-junkie in me always seeking a way out. The worst times have not been connected with actual acting (I used to act back in high school, and indeed took a lead role in the silent film I made with my friends in those days), but, if I recall, in business presentations. Feelings of dread and doom overtake one as the moment of facing the audience draws inexorably closer.

I take heart from the fact that even experienced professional actors get stage fright--quite badly in some cases. I remember hearing that no less veteran a performer than Peter O'Toole had terrible nerves before going on stage, would hyperventilate and flap his arms to vent his stress. The pro is (mostly) able to take that energy and use it: inject it into the performance. The schmo stands on the stage, paralyzed and squeaking, bringing on the dreaded fiasco.

I recognized my resistance to writing as being in the same genus of fear. It's performance anxiety. There comes a moment of truth, and you've either got it or you don't. Can the high-jumper clear the bar? Can the soprano hit the note? The moment comes, and we find out.

When you actually sit down to write, you've already achieved something: you've hacked your way through a thicket of excuses. That in itself is an attainment that most would-be writers never achieve. "I'm too busy"; "I can't get enough quiet time alone"; "I'm not feeling creative right now". These and their allies defeat many a proto-writer.

And why? I believe it's because the proto-writer is undermotivated, basically due to fear. The proto-writer has page fright: the fear of arriving at a moment of truth and flopping. I don't mean flopping in the sense of not getting published or produced, for those problems happen only to the writer who has actually made it through page fright and written something. I mean flopping in the sense of balling up, freezing--experiencing an emotional state much like that of the terrified actor, paralyzed and squeaking on stage.

I can't say that flopping in front of your computer screen is worse than flopping in a live performance. We've all seen those Olympic figure-skating performances that have crashed and burned, due basically to performance anxiety, and imagined the crushing disappointment of people who have spent years in relentless single-minded training, all to face those four minutes on the ice. It must be like having your soul machine-gunned.

But the private flopping of the writer has its own special poignancy, even its own special agony. There's no world audience to witness your failure, but that world audience is in some ways a boon--it gives the high-profile failure something to push back at, something to define himself against: "I'll show them!" At the very least, he can enjoy the spectacle of defeat and tragedy--we remember Hector and Troy, after all, and they have their own measure of greatness. The failure of the writer is a private affair, an unsung tragedy, like the drowning of a hermit in the wilderness. He expires quietly, anonymously, his final thoughts unknown.

My way of dealing with page fright is through structure and routine. My morning routine happens automatically, by habit. If I just let one body movement follow another, I wind up here at my PC. That gets me through the thicket of excuses.

Then I have a structured way of getting into the writing itself. I open up my Notes document to the previous day's work, click on the Word highlighter, and go through the material, looking for "keeper" ideas. It's a fairly mechanical job, and it gets me engaged with the material, recalling what I'm working on. Nowadays I'm also copying and pasting the highlighted material into another document, which I call the Workspace for the chapter: where the refined notes go, along with plotting and outlining material.

Now, having got used to the water, so to speak, I can start splashing around. I can go back to my Notes document and start typing new thoughts into it. I think, "It's only notes--you can write anything here." I talk to myself, and type what I say.

In the Workspace I feel a little more pressure, since it's a more refined level of notes. But I have the safety net of dropping back to the Notes document, to chew the cud and muse randomly, or follow tangents.

My plan is to create a third level of preparation document, a Treatment, in which I will use the material from the Workspace to write out a story treatment for the chapter. The aim here too is to take the pressure off, to alleviate page fright by providing yet more scaffolding before I attempt the actual prose.

Is this an elegant or inspired way to write? Maybe not. It feels kind of corporate. But page fright is a reality. There are plenty of author-alcoholics out there to testify to its power. If a narrow pole were stretched across the Grand Canyon, and you found yourself out somewhere in the middle of it, how worried would you be about your poise and form? Speaking for myself, I wouldn't be one of those walking with a bold, insouciant step. I'd be wrapped around it like a snake, inching my way forward, alternately praying and swearing.

Just like that pilot I talked to at Seminary: "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing." Any method that gets you hitting the keys is a good method.

patience

What does a writer who's writing about his writing write about when he's not writing?

Last week I saw, in a book my mother had bought about writing, a snippet from Lawrence Durrell, which I paraphrase as, "All blocks are at bottom a form of egotism".

For I do feel rather blocked. But at the same time I recall Robert McKee's sterling advice, that the cure for writer's block is research. According to him, writer's block is simply lack of knowledge of your subject.

I suppose that writer's block is actually a symptom, and not a disorder in its own right. It could therefore have different causes, as a fever can have different causes. Durrell's egotistical block sounds like a symptom of the writer who has donned the hat of the editor or critic, and sits perched at the desk, waiting for the creator to come up with something so he can edit/criticize it. The creator, like a gopher in a hole surrounded by vigilant dogs, knows better than to poke his nose out in that environment.

I do suffer from that type of block, but it has not been debilitating. It has not prevented me from creating--although I do think it has limited the quality of what I have written, and I have taken various steps in my life to try to improve the situation. I have tried to both throw the hounds off the scent, and also toughen up that little gopher so it can sock it to the hounds if it does find them on-site when it emerges. I've used things like writing drills, in which inhibition is smashed by forcing oneself to write nonstop for a short period, like 15 minutes. But I think this obstacle is also overcome somewhat by taking on projects that are so challenging in other respects, such as in size and complexity, that one's attention is forced to those aspects, leaving one's actual manner of expression, one's use of words, to fend for itself.

But in general I think McKee's assessment is more to the point, and more debilitating if left untreated. For the slavering hounds called Editor and Critic can be thrown off the scent by one trick or another, but if you don't know what you're talking about or what you're trying to say in the first place, you really are stuck. Then it's true that only research can save you. You have to refuel the empty tank of your head.

This is what I've been trying to do. Yes, I've been researching my world and my topic almost nonstop for five years. Yes, I read from at least one and usually two or even three relevant books on it each day, and type notes into Word files. But I need to get my hands on the right books, the right topic areas. And it takes me time to get through them. I'm steady rather than fast.

Then there's the task of synthesis. If I read more than one authority on a subject, and they disagree, which version do I go with? What do I think happened? This is decision-making in the face of uncertainty, which is inherently stressful and hard. Each decision defines the world of my story a little more, gives it its character and its meaning. For each decision is made by particular criteria, whether conscious or unconscious. If I have a choice, then I should choose that which furthers the aims of my story, which is largely still an intuitive choice.

The other danger with research, also cautioned against by McKee, is that of spending all one's time in research and never getting down to writing. This is the sign of the nervous student or amateur. In McKee's view writing should proceed as a series of steps of writing and research. You write as much as you can, until you get blocked from lack of knowledge, then you turn to research. As soon as you know enough to proceed, you do so. You learn what you need to know in the course of writing, so that by the time you finish your final draft, you know the world of your story completely--and not before that time, if you've been writing efficiently.

I've been embroiled in the world of the cults of the Roman Empire, and seeing ways to incorporate this material in my work. It's very relevant, since my work is a spiritual story at bottom. I'm still stuck at the same chapter, but I find myself making notes in other chapters for how to rewrite them in draft 2. I am learning enough to find that my current draft, draft 1, is already becoming obsolete.

And yet I must finish it. Because going back to start a new draft before you've finished the current one is suicide, I think. Don't rewrite something that isn't written yet.

Patience. That's what I really need. I think that's what I'm really trying to learn.

the (un)inhibited writer

I've sat here for some minutes now, trying to think of how to launch this post. Usually some idea comes to me quickly, and I start wandering into my topic, discovering it as I go. Today nothing has really recommended itself to me.

Technically this is writer's block. I can say that this block is due to the cause to which I would generally attribute writer's block--I'm not writing about the right thing. In this case, it means that I'm constrained in my blog from talking about many things--things that I feel are too private or personal to publish, or things that will reveal too much about my work in progress, spoiling the eventual result. Writer's block, in short, is striving to write about one thing when you really want to write about something else.

As a result, writer's block happens to writers on paid assignments, or in the midst of large projects to which they've committed themselves and don't want to abandon. Writer's block, as the name implies, is inhibition. What inhibits us?

I sense that these inhibitions are of two broad kinds: inhibitions due to knowledge and inhibitions due to emotions. The knowledge inhibitions come from not knowing what we're talking about. This type of block is cured by research, as Robert McKee suggests in his book Story.

Emotional inhibitions I think can be of several kinds. One kind is performance anxiety: that what one will write will be no good; fear of failure. Another kind is exposure, which is perhaps the same as other kinds of inhibition: fear of drawing unwanted attention to ourselves, or fear of provoking unpleasant reactions from people. Why won't I go skinny-dipping with the group? Afraid of what people will think about my naked body. Why not ask that woman out for a date? Afraid of rejection.

Good writing takes off its clothes and asks people for a date. At bottom it seems that inhibition is an attitude toward risk. The inhibited person--the blocked person--does not have enough confidence in the possibility of the reward that lies on the far side of a risk. "Safety first" is the motto, and it may well be one that was learned early and hard. It is therefore difficult to give up.

I remember reading a book on investing called The Zurich Axioms. In it the author, Max Gunther, makes the point that life is inseparable from risk. The caterpillar, in order to munch on the life-giving leaf, must crawl out the branch and risk being eaten by a bird. It can hide in safety for awhile, but eventually hunger will drive it out into the zone of risk, to live or die.

There's no guarantee. A risk can work out badly--maybe very badly. The caterpillar gets eaten. Or I think of sensational local news stories, such as a teenage boy who recently was killed when he crashed his motorcycle late at night on the Barnet Highway, no doubt traveling at high speed. He took a risk for the thrill of it, and snuffed out his young life.

The death of the victims heightens the thrill of the survivors: their deaths are the measure of the survivors' achievement, and provide its emotional voltage.

Speech is not often used to communicate people's true, deepest thoughts and feelings. Such communication is too risky for most of us, and we avoid it. In that sense we're all inhibited--we all have "writer's block". The writer who manages to turn into the skid, and actually, truthfully express what he or she is thinking or feeling, is showing us all the way to be genuine, courageous, and how to make a bid for the true prizes of life--the green leaves out on those sunstruck branches.